I walked invisible
among the trees.
I listened to their
flowers weep;
a sound much
like my failing
heart–all white
and filled with grief.
You never came,
no word,
if words were possible;
so I turned back
and climbed the
lonely road to
a place where
gods were waiting.
I held them off
the silver moon,
the starless sky,
the scent of jasmine
and found my fate
inside myself;
a darker plain
than most
but home to
all I love—
paper trees,
a sanguine sky,
a city by the
water’s edge.
and so this wintering
is a chilling by degrees
the sting of loss
slowly frosting all I love
or all that might
have ever loved me
where are those
easy days of light
the long walks
beside a blue lake
the yellow coneflowers
the sun’s burning kiss
now I am all shadow
and sadness
at this slow goodbye
this fading into gray
that has become my life
you could have loved me
but you were too afraid
mistaking all this death
for who I am
while all this time
I was in the color
undamaged and intact
ablaze with life
and its sweet repititions
When I come
in the room
it comes with
me that long
slow thing that
sings and sings;
And, yes, I fear
it now, its yellow
face, its great hibiscus
heart–there is no magic
that can save me
from its bright blooming.
And, so, this wounding
is a piece of you,
a piece of me, grafted
on a paper tree;
you died for love
and I was born bereft–
a man with a cross to bear,
a woman with a heart that dared.
I’ve always been a person who struggled with meaning. Not the “meaning” of my life but what something means. From the time I was a kid I’ve always had to listen real hard to what people were saying–did they mean me when they said that, is there a message there for me, have I done something wrong? It’s like I speak a different language than the rest of the world and have to filter everything through a lens that is deeply clouded. Perhaps that is why I love music and poetry and art so much. I don’t need to understand; I only need to feel! As an artist, I think of my work in specific ways–drawing, mixed-media, experimental, narrative, landscape, colorful, however, because of my own confusion about “meaning” I don’t expect anyone to share my viewpoint about my work. When I approach a painting, or a poem, or a song; I bring myself and all the history that life has burdened me with as audience. If you truly want to be creative then you can’t put fences around your work. The work must be free but you have to understand that a viewer, a listener will find in your work what they need, not what you need. I invite people to tell me what they see in my drawings. Sometimes it is very intimidating! Recently a friend asked me “When did you move from the rain into the sunshine?” I was stunned! Did she see that in my drawings, did she see that in me, or was she telling me about herself? No work of art is entirely removed from the artist but the artist, certainly, cannot prevent the audience from finding meanings that are necessary to them. Good art will always transcend the artist because it allows for interpretation. You can’t tell the world that you want your art to be “free” and then get angry because someone called your drawing “a painting”, your poem “a song” or your song “a poem.” My life has taught me that meaning is at best elusive. I have survived because I’ve always understood that every work of art, that every poem, that every song is there to comfort me in this hard thing called life. What artist could ask for more?
rlmcdermott 